Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Review: Clear Jelly Stamper SOFT head, plus three layering plates!

(Press sample)

Hello!!

I have awesome news for you! Clear Jelly Stamper now has a softer, more flexible refill head available! The only minus for me with the original Clear Jelly Stamper (the harder head) was that it wasn't flexible, and it was a little fragile, so I was extremely excited to test this out, to see if it worked as well as the original despite the difference in material.

I did a video review showing this baby in action, which you can check out here:

And here's what I found:1) Can you see through it as well as the original head?

As you can see, the refill head is just as clear as the original (refill head is next to the stamper, original head is inside the stamper):

I didn't find any difference in my ability to see through the head, or position the stamps.

2) Does it pick up as well as the original head?

I found that this stamper picked up just as well as the other stamper; in fact, because the head is more flexible, I was a little less paranoid about using the perfect 'flick of the wrist'.

3) Does it align as well as the original head?

I already mentioned that you can see through this just as easily as the original. But in addition, I found that the extra give of the soft head allowed me align with even more control than the original--I have curvy nails, and whenever I roll over my nails, I risk warping my image. With this stamper, I was able to press in rather than just roll, and I got better placement.

4) Do you have as much dry time as the original?

The original, harder head was made of material that allowed the polish to stay wet for longer than most stampers. This softer head doesn't have that advantage; the polish dried at about the same rate as other stampers.

5) Can you do techiques like shrink stamps with it?

No. This isn't a marshmallow head, it's just more flexible than the original, like other soft-but-non-marshmallow stamper heads. You can push your nail into it fairly easily, but I wouldn't risk trying to stretch it.

So what do I think? I think this head gets rid of the only concern I had about the original Clear Jelly Stamper, the firmness/fragility of the head. I'll still use the harder head when I want a longer dry time during application, but for the most part, I'll be using this softer refill head.

Clear Jelly Stamper also sent me three layering plates to review, CJS C-02, and CJS-01 and CJS-03; these stamps are designed specifically for use with the clear jelly stamper, because they're designed to be layered and/or mixed and matched:

CJS C-02 Christmas sweater madness!!

CJS-01 Flowers galore!

CJS-03 Snowfall serenade

On the Christmas sweater plate, there are some images designed to layer, but the plate is more about mixing and matching the elements you want to make the perfect Christmas sweater manicure; on the second two, there are lots of layers and pieces you can use to build multi-layered multi-colored flowers and snowflakes.

These are just over 2.25 inches square; this will give you a sense of the relative size of each image:

With spring colors and collections coming out, that flower plate called to me, so I decided to do my sample manicure with it (CJS-01; you can see me test the other two in the video). I started with Zoya Ireland:

Zoya Ireland

I stamped my flowers and leaves using Sally Hansen Lively Lilac, Pronto Purple, Irush Luck, and Poison Ivy; Wet n Wild Who Is Ultra Violet, Barry M Cotton and Almond; I also stamped a subtle background on parts of the nails using Zoya Easton and CJS-02:

Spring flowers with CJS-01 and Zoya Ireland

Spring flowers with CJS-01 and Zoya Ireland

I did have a couple of very minor snafus, one on the ring finger where I didn't overlap the purple on the white 100% perfectly and one on the thumb where I lifted the stamper too soon and got a bobble with my purple outline, and had to stamp again over it (notice the big flower on that thumb has SIX layers!). But considering this is only my second full mani with the clear stamper and I did a crazy number of layers, I'm pretty impressed with what this stamper and these plates can do.

You can find the soft refill had and all these awesome plates in Clear Jelly Stamper's store; she's coming out with new plates for the spring as well!

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